Suppose that your son flashed a penchant for basketball. Suppose that through raw talent, dogged perseverance and just plain hard work, he blossomed into an outstanding college player. Suppose that he envisioned himself an NBA player in the mold of, maybe, Ben Wallace, or Bruce Bowen, or Avery Johnson. Would you sign up for that?

Though Wallace, Bowen and Johnson have had respectable NBA careers, they share an uncommon trait: They were not drafted. They all negotiated the thicket of NBA obstacles as free agents.

The plight of players like that resonates loudly and deeply right now with the ascension of the Knicks' Jeremy Lin to the pinnacle of public consciousness. The son of two engineers from Taiwan, the 6-foot-3 Lin has risen from the obscurity of the D-League to become the king of New York. He has averaged almost 27 points in leading the Knicks to five consecutive wins.

But Lin also went undrafted after graduating with an economics degree from Harvard, a school that has produced more U.S. presidents than NBA players. (Lin is earning $762,195 this season, so if this whole basketball thing doesn't work out and he can stomach the pay cut, he could run for president.) But if politics is in Lin's future, it can wait. Right now he's making a push for inclusion on our list of Top 10 Undrafted NBA Players.